Don’t Touch That Dial

Poet Dale K. Nichols lends some rhyme and rhythm to the pro-democracy movement. Proceeds from paid subscriptions go to support pro-democracy legal organizations

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Dale K. Nichols
Don’t Touch That Dial

Don’t touch that dial—stay tuned to Fox,
where president Trump is strong as an ox;

where his words are parroted when he talks,
and the ground is worshiped on which he walks;

where cabinet posts and prominent spots
in 2.0 are sold and bought;

where never a bit too cold or hot,
the economy hums like Goldilocks;

where the beds in which we lie are not
too hard—just Right—and perfectly soft;

where the Murdoch family and Suzanne Scott
control the content of what we watch;

and where millions of MAGAs like trained robots
stay glued to the news with nary a thought.

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Editor’s Note
by Michael Broder

The only person, place, or thing in this poem that I did not recognize was the name Suzanne Scott, so I thought I’d bring myself up to speed.

Suzanne Scott is the CEO of Fox News. Born at the dawn of Gen X (1965), she grew up in Parsippany, New Jersey, the daughter of working class parents. Scott graduated from American University in Washington D.C., working as an assistant to network executive Chester Collier at CNBC and then following him to Fox News when it started up in 1996. She held a number of positions at Fox throughout the early 2000s, becoming CEO of both Fox News and Fox Business Network in 2018.

Just goes to show you how in America, a person of modest background can rise to become one of the greatest threats to democracy in the history of the world.

—MB

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Click here to order your copy of Never Trump Poetry: The Book.

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About the team

In the words of Dale K. Nichols, Poet

Whatever I might feel about the merit of particular aspects of the MAGA agenda, I believe that Trump, as the movement’s standard-bearer and chief instigator, is a clear and present danger to the future of America and our way of life. That we the people decided to elect him to a second term points to certain dark undercurrents in our nation’s psyche that had been pushed to the shadows for decades until they were recently coaxed back into broad daylight. For those of you who are Harry Potter fans, I believe that Tom Riddle has reemerged as Lord Voldemort, and we Muggles are in the midst of an ugly Wizarding War that has already suffered many casualties.

In the words of Michael Broder, Editor

I am a gay white male and lifelong registered Democrat. I took this project on because I believed Dale’s work could create community around the kind of satiric political poetry that used to be more prevalent in American life.While I am indeed a Harry Potter fan, my pop-culture metaphor for the Orange Menace is Burgermeister Meisterburger, the sadistic, oppressive, and abusive mayor of Sombertown who despises toys—and will arrest anyone who plays with or owns a toy—in the classic 1970 stop-motion Christmas television special, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.